WGNA Refuses to Honor Own Policy, Now With Extra Shadiness

Got another episode of Wargaming being boneheaded, this time from WGNA. I was contacted earlier today by a user on the North American forums, Avalon304 about an issue with WGNA where they refused to honor their own policy. You see, Avalon304 won a forum contest, namely the “Classic Tank Show”, where you could win a bundle of all three “classic” tier 8 premiums, the T34, the IS-6, and the Löwe. The contest in question can be found here: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/553769-classic-tank-show-win-a-free-tank-bundle/

Now, this is where the problem started. Avalon304 already owned those tanks, and wondered why he hadn’t be given compensation for them in the form of gold, which is standard procedure for winning duplicate tanks in contests:

After some back and forth and a remarkable lack of knowledge about their own policies and procedures about what is doable and what is not, CabbageMechanic states that they are unable to credit the gold value for the tanks despite that being their own policy:

That is until Avalon304 kindly points out that one of their support articles does list gold compensation for contest tanks:

Here’s where it becomes extremely shady and deceptive however, as CabbageMechanic claims in the screenshot above that there are very strict rules in place over what can and cannot be done. Yet in the face of actual proof of their policy regarding contest tanks, he decides to compensate Avalon304 the gold difference (minus the T-44-100 that Avalon304 actually wanted) of 24,500 gold. Seems like a case closed, right?

Except, those very strict rules he’s talking about sure seemed to disappear quite quickly in the face of actual evidence of said policy, must not be that strict to begin with. What’s even more concerning however is the fact that the support site was changed almost immediately by WGNA to reflect this change in policy. Which is to say they removed any instance that said policy was ever in effect. Which is bad enough on its own, except that WGNA didn’t remove all instances of those claims on their support site. Here is the original link as mentioned by Avalon304 in the screenshots: https://na.wargaming.net/support/kb/articles/558

The only change between the two links is the complete removal of the second point of the Gold compensation part, “Winning a Premium Tank in a live event (Twitch stream, player gathering, social media, etc)”.

So let’s recap here, WGNA ran a contest offering a premium bundle for three of the most common and expensive premium tanks in the game, and somehow did not account for anyone actually owning all three of them and wanting the gold value instead. This seems remarkable for a company the size of Wargaming or even just WGNA, but this does seem to be par for the course lately. They then decided, that when faced with the possibility of having to payout 36,300 gold to someone, to outright change their policy on the fly so as to avoid such a payout. Which is quite a sleazy tactic I might add. And even more remarkable, decided to alter their support site almost immediately to act like said policy never existed in the first place. If WGNA is willing to go to these kinds of extremely shady and disgusting moves to avoid having to pay out what amounts to a measly sum of an arbitrary in-game currency, then what else will WGNA, and by extension, all of Wargaming, alter so as to avoid in the future?

I meant to say this but my grammar is just bad lol make a new topic and just warn people not to play there games.. WG bunch of greedy pricks.wait heres a better idea get jim sterling into WGs face again.

While I don’t like the behavior, I play on NA and don’t think this is an issue: Heres why…
WG na has had issue like this before. What happened here is that WG as a company changed from gold to credit compensation (I remember a not in a patch about a year and a half ago) and WG na followed directions and started compensating in credits. They did not take the time to update their suport page, which was coppied over from the onlder version. What CabbageMechanic did was generous, avalon doesn’t need 30k gold (He has plenty) and he was rewarded this gold against company policy, and WG na fixed this issue by changing the support page. They didn’t hide anything, Avalon was just being nittpicky about old rules.

So that support page IS from the time when they switched from gold compensation to credit compensation, gold compensation still applied for contests (among other things), at that time. This is the whole point, the policy switch from the posted policy to whatever the new one is was not communicated effectively. (A year and a half ago is roughly September of 2015, which is when that support article was created).

(Oh and saying I have “plenty” of gold… I literally had 700 gold before today).

Mmm… shame on me for expecting a company honor their official documentation.

More over… that you think the entire community no longer gets compensation is funny and shows that you can understand the context of Cabbage’s reply to me after I pointed out their policy article.

He plainly states that the policy I showed him was no longer the policy, but acknowledges that since it was an official page he will honor it. The context here is that the policy had changed BEFORE this event, but the support page had not be updated.

I blame you for being Greedy still. People can read, and they can think also. They clearly see what you did. You entered a contest, where you knew you already had those tanks. You clearly were hoping to see how far you could push on this to get what you wanted.

You figured you had everything to gain by holding their feet over the fire, your an opportunist, and you took advantage clearly. Anyone with and common sense knows what you did. You can set there and rationalize, and explain it away all you want, but we all can see what you did. You have done damage whether you know it or not, but as long as you got more that’s all that matters.

Oh, one other thing,,, I blame you for having terrible taste in Clothes, and Hats. You see apparently, that Exposing Wot Site has posted your personal photograph over on their website, I don’t really like that ridiculous hat your wearing. Your trying to look like some type of mafia hitman or something? Out in Las Vegas where you live.

You better go check that out. Say, someone seems to think you should have played that role of the guy in the movie Phone Booth. You look like the Greedy type too… sheez…

The man won a contest … but yeah, he’s got the tanks, so why bother, right? What you are suggesting means that it was his own bloody fault he decided to support the company by paying money for tanks. Give me a break.

While you don’t like the behaviour you completely agree with it in the end.
We had a similar case in the clan a couple of years ago when WG decided to change Stronghold rules without announcing it and It absolutely decimated our stronghold.
Contacting support and proving that we have been damaged by not our own fault and demanding a compensation, because there is a compensation policy in these cases, I have been informed that support will not take any action as they have no power or right to do so and I should contact the devs. To the question that how should I contact the devs if not trough the trough the support my ticket was closed without an answer or the option to reopen it.

Alright then, was not expecting this much feedback on my original post.
1) My apologies to Avalon, saying he had plenty of gold was unjustified and untrue.
2) It is a contest where you get tanks for free, while I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been paid in gold, it’s not like WG has stolen his cash.
3) I don’t like WG, I don’t like the NA server, and I’m not sticking up for them. I do believe, that the heading of this article at least was overhyped and the matter at hand is not a deliberate ploy like it was lead to believe.

That link, which shows the original policy still, states that you get gold compensation from (and Im gonna quote this for you):

“Winning a Premium Tank in a live event (Twitch stream, player gathering, social media, etc)”

Which contests do fall under. Clearly, if youve “researched” this you would have come across this vital piece of evidence, right? And you would have read and comprehended, that while missions in game no longer award gold (as they once used to), that buying/being gifted a tank, winning a tank in some sort of event, or if WG makes major changes to a tank, still resulted in gold compensation. That was the policy WG themselves set on Sept. 1st 2015.

Maybe instead of doing “research” you actually research things and dont just take salty troll articles for gospel.

I love that some people act like it’s going to hurt Wargaming, the multi million dollar company that has studios and employees all over the world. Chill guys, Wargaming has enough plans to release tier 8 premiums from here until the rapture that people will hand over money for that I don’t think Victor Kislyi is going to be begging for change on a street corner any time soon.

As an active NA player this really ticks me off that WG NA would do something like this to deceive their players. I say first spread awareness to other CCs who’s opinions will not go unnoticed by WG and then protesting on the WGNA YT and channel forums about this. WGNA must know of their mistakes and more most know about this.

Its Wargaming, noone is surprised or shocked here. Its really common place anymore.
Its like trying to be shocked that EA managed to screw up some game or another yet again. You try, sure. But your not surprised. And havent been since like. 2000.

This clearly was annoying and frustrating. I assume it was a result of a change in policy that hadn’t been reflected in the relevant support page. That was obviously a mistake. Also, WGNA should have honored the stated policy as soon as it was pointed out. But in the end, the company did the right thing by avalon304, and appropriately adjusted the support page to reflect the new policy. Furthermore, I don’t think the “strict rule” thing is much of an issue–I’m willing to bet CabbageMechanic had to get approval for the gold compensation, but even if he did bend the truth here, worrying about that in the face of having received the requested compensation is kind of petty. I wish all the companies I deal with would treat me as well as avalon304 was treated, and I can definitely cite two much worse cases I’ve had experienced in the past month alone (my phone provider, who mistakenly cut off my wife’s service for about a week over the course of two incidents, and an eBay seller).

How is “I got f*cked worse” an excuse for WG NA’s behavior here? It would have been a matter of decency to award Avalon304 the gold compensation (which wouldn’t have cost WG NA anything really) and then change the support page. Where I live, you are bound to public statements like the one in question even if they contradict your business policy or EULA. Put a wrong price tag on something really expensive, and you will have to sell for the way too low price. One could say the loss of reputation would be more costly for WG NA, but obviously there isn’t much left to lose for them in that regard … and it’s also not the worst thing I have heard about WG NA: I still remember the drama around CirconFlex’s video comment of the Chrysler K GF all too well.

Lmao!! Hey status report, what are you thinking posting this?? You so realize if you some how miraculously take down wargaming your blog is F’ED. No one gives a rats ass about war thunder, so we both agree that’s not going to keep your audiences entertained, perhaps you should dial down the hate on a company that helps you exist??
I know you’ll post this so all the non cerebral status report trolls can make illogical comments against my argument.
My bad for any spelling grammar, did this on an iPhone 📱
Cheers

What exactly is your point here? Just because Rita and friends are community contributors for World of Tanks, they just shouldn’t post any negative things about it? Do you realise how ridiculous that is?

As for illogical comments against your argument, maybe you shouldn’t start with an illogical comment to begin with. It’s really not that difficult to find a new game to blog about, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

Just because you point out a lack of proper communication between WGNA and its player base doesn’t mean that you’re somehow trying to take down Wargaming. How do you expect them to fix anything if you don’t point out mistakes they are making??? As a player on the NA server I can say that there definitely is a lack of clarity with a lot of these policies and half the time I have no idea what I’m going to receive if I win something or if I do an in game mission.
Do the E-25 mission in game and spend tons of hours playing to get it? Get a compensation of credits. Do a mission for Tank Rewards.com and get a random luck of the draw where you win an E-25??? Get gold compensation. So does Tankrewards.com not count as an in game mission? Does it count as a contest??? If so then why doesn’t this policy cover that site too?? I’m not complaining about getting gold, I’m happy when I do but it would be nice if they were clear and make sure that the policies are easily accessible and not outdated so that players don’t feel cheated when they are expecting one thing but get another.

If you think this is the first time WG NA has done something shady, you are just ignorant. They dont enforce illegal mods on important clans, they have secret nerfs, etc. So either unistall or get over it and accept it.

WG is a joke… They always do mistake in announcement, the website is full of mistake (even for the final Belgium vs Finland they put a bad link to the stream for the event)…
And they always try to not pay for their mistake, even when you show them that they’re wrong they’ll do what they want. I’m really surprised that Avalon did get any gold, I was expecting a sad story at the end.
On European server I have a lot of little stories about refund in credit, about recover a premium sold that was refused (even if good for the period of recover) and I even had someone that had a tank recover after 3 years. Why him and not the other? Lets guess…
They do what they want, but I’m sure that if one day some player take them before justice for several points they’ll win (like some did years ago for EA with Ultima Online problems).

this is bad, I stopped playing the game after power creep.
wtf is wargaming thinking, how…. do they really think like “if we don’t give them gold for contests they will pay us”…
changing policy on the go is very bad, this will follow them for a long time.

20k gold did not cost them a dime, compared to they annual profit it is not the 0.0000000000001% so this move was not worth it…
if they just gave out the rewards in silence and then changed policy that would be fine, like “mkay, we fucked up this one” but problem is probably on corporate level rather than on community manager level – CM has to stand behind the company so they refused to pay with gold and he had to go with it even if against the policy.
If he didn’t WG would say that he reacted on his own mind, rash and you know what else they said after the copyright threat, it was not WG it was rash decision making from phlean and he ended up like an escape goat.

shame really, I hope this topic gets enough attention on all servers, WG’s greed is way out of proportion

NA has been pretty inconsistent about how it rewards us when it comes to tanks we win. For instance my platoonmate did a set of missions to earn the E-25 then in a forum post (not on any kind of support site or any kind of mention of it in the description for the mission) they said that they would earn credits and not gold. A few months after that happened I did missions for Tankrewards.com and won the E-25 in a random draw and was compensated with Gold. Same thing when I did another mission for Tank Rewards and got enough points for the Excelsior which I already owned and he got gold as well as he already owned it and did the same mission. It seemed like it was more of an issue with the amount of gold and not the actual policy to me. Which is wrong, if he spent real world money for those tanks it’s only right they give him the equivalent currency.

1. If you do noy update your own support page then that is your own fault. You have to honour that until it is changed and updated.

2. If you have both of these active at the same time I would argue that Avalon should get Gold compensation AND credit compensation at the same time. If WG can’t even handle their own policies and have multiple ones seemingly active they mist honour ALL of them.

3. It doesn’t cost WG a single penny, cent or otherwise. It’s a digital currency and digital tanks.

4. It takes like 3 clicks with a proper support system in the background to credit an account with something. I have worked in business and credited clients account multiple times. It takes 3 clicks and about 1 minute.

5. I would also argue that Avalon should be given EXTRA compensation for misleading information, lies and terrible support service.

All in all WG are greedy bastards who can’t find their own arse in plain fucking daylight.
The lack of common sense, communication and knowledge of their own products and policies is simply astounding.

I think that the main problem here may be that the people in charge aren’t intelligent enough to make decisions that bypass “official rules” even if bypassing them would benefit them much more … like in this case handing out some basically worthless in-game currency for an improvement of their obviously awful reputation. Well, it is always easier to mindlessly follow rules setup by others than taking responsibility and thinking for yourself.

What is wrong with getting 3 different premiums? I mean yes he should be compensated, but fck me 36k gold is waaay too much…he is the one being difficult…should have accepted the sta, mutz and t-44-100 = gold and 2 premiums, but NO….

I mean, I could have accepted the STA-2, Mutz and T-44-100. But theres two major issues with that:

1. If gold compensation had been off the table completely then the STA-2 would have triggered the same problem, and we would have been back to square 1.

and

2. Premiums that Im not going to play (in this case, the Mutz) do me no good.

But really, youre missing the point: This wasnt about what tanks I got (I even state that I know 2 of the tanks I originally asked for were off limits), this was about WG having changed, (at some point in the past, after Sept. 1st 2015), their policy regarding gold compensation for tanks won in a contest, and not updating their public facing documentation leading me, and presumably 2 others who also had the same issue with the contest, into thinking we would get gold compensation for the tanks. As far as Im aware, they chose other tanks, but I needed no other tanks, and I was under the impression that WGs policy was still to offer gold in cases such as this so I pushed for what the policy as it was written said I could get.

If you read the conversation between me and Cabbage, the moment I point out that they have public facing documentation stating that gold was awarded he realized that he would have to honor it, despite their current policy. This is no different than a super market running an ad, but having a different price in store; if the customer shows them the ad, they honor the price on the ad, regardless of the current price (so long as the ad is current). If I hadnt had that public facing documentation and Cabbage had explained their current policy, I wouldnt have had a leg to stand on and I would have chosen 2 other premiums to sit in my garage.

The fact that anyone can blame me for no one else getting gold compensation is silly (and people have already tried to pin that on me), since based on the context of Cabbage’s messages to me, the policy had changed long ago, and WG hadnt updated it in the support site.

Another new article about this situation has popped up. Apparently, Avalon304 is a pretty Greedy Guy. And Rita is not too bright either. You guys are shameless. Now, you have costed the entire community.

I know, its hard to understand context, but trying to blame everyone else not getting gold compensation on me is HILARIOUS. Read the conversation between me and Cabbage (its unedited). Cabbage points out that he has a very strict set of rules for what he can and can not do in situations such as this, hinting that the policy from Sept. 1st 2015 had changed, but realizes that an official support page has to be honored, even if the information is incorrect. The policy didnt change because of me. The policy had been changed sometime between Sept. 1st 2015 and Sept. 7th 2017 but the support article had not been changed to reflect it. So in addition to honoring incorrect, but official, information they have also changed the article in question to reflect current policy.

They should have told you, “Take your damn Silver, and STFU, or get F**K out. Cause that’s not the policy you Greedy person. You knew before you entered the contest what the policy was, we’ll give the tanks to someone else who needs them if you don’t want the silver.” You’re not better than anyone else around here.

Just because your from Las Vegas, and you wear bad clothes, and have a poor taste in Hats, don’t make you think your better than anyone else!

Simple they made an obligation by setting up the competition and defining the rules it will be run to so must pay the compensation due. Anything less than this is illegal by any judicial standard in Europe or North Americal

@Rita Sobral, You know there was also supposed to be a 7 day premium + boosters compensation for our chat and friends list being broken for the past couple of months. According to their own news article, we were supposed to receive this on the 1st of September, but guess what? WGNA decided to have a sale on 7 days premium account and we never got the 7 days compensation or boosters!

Avalon you got your gold you can clearly see Cabbage isn’t half bad. now you have everyone mad at him when he treated you fairly and gave you your gold and a t-44-100. You entered that contest thinking oh easy gold payout there are many newer players that could use those premiums instead of you. All I see is a selfish person looking to put wargaming in a bad spotlight even though his request was fulfilled. Many more people besides yourself were pissed about Kasota and some of us actually took time to write out a detailed article that could have been published , but wasn’t. Even though it affected at least 1,000 wot players who had to stand in long lines in 100+ farinheight weather. Think about others before yourself

Im so glad youve missed the point. I’ll explain it for you though: This isnt about Cabbage. He was very helpful and very professional. And he resolved the situation amenably for both parties.

This is about the lines of communication from WG (as a whole, not just WGNA) to the player base in regards to keeping their players updated and properly informed about policy changes. Because if they had proper lanes of communication about this, we wouldnt be having this discussion in the first place. If I knew that the policy for tanks won in contests had changed, I would have accepted credits and it would have been done. But I didnt, and an official WG source stated that the policy was for gold compensation.

And whether or not new players could use the premiums is irrelevant… there were no stipulations attached to entering the contest other than “post what tank you think is a classic”. After that it was a random draw, meaning I had as much a chance of winning as any other person who entered did, and Im not the only one who owned all or some of these tanks already… 2 other winners did as well.

As for this article… Im not the one who wrote it, nor am I the one who published it. Im not privy to the publish schedule for Status Report, I have no control over that.

35000 in-game gold compensation – think about it, company doesn’t lose a single cent. That’s not real money. Secret is it all started after Intel CPU bonus cards for Jagpanther 88 that were sold for $15 on eBay giving buyers full gold compensation up to 4 times. WOT has decided that they lost millions on that crap and killed gold comp all together

Having read through everything here, personally, I’m siding with Cabbage on this one.
There are so many times when policy and terms and conditions change within a company, usually with a memo or some such that goes around and then everyone is updated on the new version. There are also plenty of times when online or physical documentation may get missed or overlooked. I had this kinda often when I worked for a big chain company and dealing with vouchers and special offers.
I even had a similar situation when I got my laser eye surgery; the company I got a quote with sent me a letter a few days later with a voucher for £300 off. Obviously I went to use it when I booked everything in. However, the letter itself gave one set of valid dates and the voucher gave a different set of dates. Initially the woman I was dealing with refused it, but when I pointed out the dates discrepancy, it was obvious there was a mistake and they allowed the voucher to be redeemed, case closed.

In this situation, it seems pretty clear that the online pages hadn’t been updated correctly, whereas the staff in question was working on the new policy. Registering the publicly available information, Avalon was compensated and the pages were updated as they should have been. This is not a case of a company refusing to adhere to it’s own policy, but that of an admin oversight at best and, if anything, they went above and beyond to accommodate the customer in question.

1. I would be jumping happy if i got ANY tier 8 prems just for saying one word in a forum even with no interest
2. Chief-95 and isu130 is a long shot.
3.Dont suck up to wg. dont fund their moon base, wg will take advantage of that and it will come back to bite you, iv stopped buying stuff from wg and iv never been happier.
4.t44-100 is dreadful, though it has been buffed iirc.
5.Wg are money-thristy cheats. dont expect them to be generous.
6. that comp seemed like another stupid wg move anyway.

Who the fuk cares. Get over it. It’s only a game. You don’t like it. Don’t play it anymore. Pretty sure they have it in the eula that the rules can be changed on the fly without notice, and if they don’t. They should add it as it is common practice. Rita will never stop playing Tanks. She makes lots of money from it.